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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. In Gin's dream about the beach, why has the narrator left her alone?

2. Which of the following techniques is used in the sentence "How adept we were at fumbling, how perfectly mistimed our timing, how utterly we confused energy with ecstasy" (233)?

3. What is the title of the poem used as an epigraph for this story?

4. Which detail of the narrator's description of their kisses indicates the passage of time?

5. After the narrator drops Gin off at her building on the night of the incident at the beach, why does she run back outside and call after him?

Short Essay Questions

1. Where are some of the places listed in the poem's opening paragraph, and how do they convey the couple's youth?

2. What do the first paragraph's details about the father's car convey about the family's social class?

3. What is the rhetorical effect of the diction used in the following description of the setting at Oak Street Beach: "The lake had turned hot pink, rose rapture, pearl amethyst with dusk, then washed in night black with a ruff of silver foam. Beyond a momentary horizon, silent bolts of heat lightning throbbed" (234)?

4. How is the From Here to Eternity love scene evoked ironically when the narrator and Gin are on the beach?

5. In what sense does the narrator mean that, after the night on Oak Street Beach, the dead woman was always "with" him and Gin?

6. What is the inclusion of details about the House of Dong intended to convey?

7. What is the rhetorical purpose of the narrator's comments about the "bloodless way in which a young man discards his own virginity" (235)?

8. What point about the relationship between men and women is made by the details the narrator observes on his train ride home after the night at Oak Street Beach?

9. What scenario does Gin keep thinking about after the night on Oak Street Beach?

10. What is foreshadowed by the page 233 description of their "lover's lane"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay that explores how the relationship between Amichai's poem and Dybek's story impacts the reader's understanding of the story's tone and mood. That is, what if Dybek had simply written the story without including the epigraph from "We Did It"? How might this change the emotional experience of reading his story for a reader unfamiliar with Amichai's poem? In your analysis of this question, be sure to consider the significance of how Dybek's wording of the passage about the Gold Coast residents imitates the wording of Amichai's poem.

Essay Topic 2

Stuart Dybek is also a respected poet. Read his poem "Night of Voyeurs," (available online) in which he is also writing about sex and the city of Chicago. Consider what role sexuality plays in this poem and then write an essay that compares and contrasts the meaning of sex in this poem with the meaning of sex in "We Didn't."

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim regarding the inclusion of religious imagery in "We Didn't." Use textual evidence to support your assertions, and if you consult outside sources be sure to credit them in MLA format.

(see the answer keys)

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